The images intrigue and shock.
Armed men in Sudan disrupt objects on a table.
At first they are confusing, but then the objects become legible: a Colombian passport in the name of Christian Lombana Moncayo, his transportation card and citizenship card, a letter in Spanish with childish handwriting that says he loves his father and “asks to God” who can give him “the joy of continuing to share.”
The video lasts just over two minutes and was uploaded along with two others by an X account that claims that “foreign mercenaries” were “eliminated” in what appeared to be, according to the BBC Africa service, alleged arms trafficking into Sudan from Libya.
Lombana Moncayo is part of a large group of Colombians involved in the power struggle carried out by the regulars Sudan Armed Forces (FAS) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FAR) since April 2023, which have left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced in one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.
A report from the Colombian media The Empty Chairbased on testimonies from Colombians there, figures at around 300 the number of ex-military personnel involved in the conflict.
It is a fact that BBC Mundo could not verify independently but that is not “unlikely” to Mario Urueña Sánchez, a security expert at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia and a student of Colombian missions abroad.
Other sources consulted by this means also support this estimate.
Whether Lombana Moncayo died in that FAS operation was not immediately confirmed, but on Friday, November 29, The FAS claimed to have killed “22 mercenaries of Colombian nationality” among the ranks of the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) in a drone attack in Darfur, in western Sudan, one of the hottest regions of the conflict.
Deceived
That retired or active Colombian soldiers participate in foreign conflicts is a trend that dates back decades.
As a result of the internal armed conflict and the war against drug trafficking, Colombia has a large army and a high number of young retired military personnel with low incomes and little alternative training.
Many find themselves in international missions and wars like that of Ukraine against Russia recently, or that of United States in Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning of the century, a livelihood of thousands of dollars.
Retired military officer Alfonso Manzur, today a student of public policies for retired soldiers in Colombia, tells BBC Mundo that in recent years “we see more former Colombian soldiers on missions abroad as we celebrate just over two decades of Colombia Plan“.
This was a bilateral agreement between the governments of Colombia and the United States that injected tens of billions of dollars in military aid to combat drug trafficking and armed groups in the South American country.
“This created an even greater number of Colombian soldiers who, two decades later, begin to retire without a sufficient source of income”says Manzur.
It is common for these retired soldiers to be recruited under promises of performing low-risk jobs and end up on the front lines of combat, risking their lives.
It happens to many in Ukraine, as BBC Mundo reported a few months ago, and it seems to be the case in Sudan as well.
Given the cases of deception exposed by the Colombian press, President Gustavo Petro He publicly asked the Foreign Ministry in X to “search for ways in Africa for the return of our deceived young people.”
The Foreign Ministry, for its part, claimed to be aware of the phenomenon of irregular migration “by which some of our compatriots travel deceived by sophisticated human trafficking networks and end up participating in international conflicts as mercenaries.”
The link between Colombians in Sudan also takes on another dimension because many, according to sources consulted by BBC Mundo, seem to have been recruited through companies that have hired, in the past and present, Colombian security personnel to work in United Arab Emirates (UAE).
This country, with an increasingly close relationship with Colombia that was cemented through security cooperation, has been accused by the Sudanese Armed Forces of supporting the Rapid Support Forces in the bloody conflict.
UAE has denied FAS accusationsalthough a United Nations report considers it “credible” that this Arab monarchy is militarily supporting the FAR with weapons, logistics and vehicles through Libya, Chad and South Sudan.
The Colombians detected by the FAS in Sudan, according to this army, were among members of the FAR.
Therefore, the FAS also accuses the UAE of “paying mercenaries to fight alongside the paramilitaries (FAR).”
The UAE government “strongly denies any allegations of the country’s link to the war in Sudan”according to a statement shared with BBC Mundo.
The text also rejected that the UAE provides “any support or supplies to either side” of the conflict and added that they call for an “immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution.”
How Colombians arrive in Sudan
BBC Mundo sources agree that many Colombians received offers through veterans’ WhatsApp groups, went to Abu Dhabi or Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and ended up fighting in Sudan.
“It is one of the darkest faces of the market for active or retired Colombian soldiers,” academic Urueña Sánchez tells BBC Mundo.
According to the expert, recruitment occurs through companies that are frequently “single-person, often set up by high-ranking Colombian military officers.” “They create WhatsApp groups and launch offers there.”
Omar Antonio Rodríguez is the former owner of one of these recruiting companies that sends former Colombian soldiers to the UAE for different security tasks and which now links the deployment of troops to Sudan.
Although he sold his company, he knows the process in which many end up involved in one of the bloodiest conflicts of today.
“There was a first group of 28 Colombians who were sent to Libya with a US$1,400 contract to work in static security, but they ended up in Sudan and, according to them, they found conditions adverse to those promised: without adequate facilities, without material, without first aid kits,” Rodríguez tells BBC Mundo.
“Then they find out that they will fight, together with the paramilitaries (FAR), the Sudanese army (FAS),” he adds.
According to Rodríguez, those 28 were nothing more than the beginning of a continuous flow of former soldiers who They traveled from Colombia to work in security in Africa, many first passing through the UAEand they moved to their supposed destination and then ended up fighting in Sudan.
“Some have already returned and others are asking to return (to Colombia) after being involved in bombings and direct confrontations, but it is not easy,” says Rodríguez.
“Due to the language, the size of the territory and the lack of diplomatic representation of Colombia in Africa, it is difficult for Colombians to leave there,” adds Urueña.
What role does the UAE play?
That the Colombian soldiers pass through the UAE first, or that recruiting companies that have assigned troops to private security work in this country are linked to the deception, draws attention.
First, because for many years UAE has been one of the most desired destinations for Colombian soldiers active or retired, among other things for its transparency and high payments.
And second, for the frequent accusations of supporting the FAR rebels that the Sudanese army makes against this country.
Although the UAE denies the allegations and its link to the FAR has not been proven, the expert Ureña recalls that “the UAE has geopolitical interests in Sudan, where it is politically related to the FAR.”
Until now, until the opposite is confirmed, what is known is that the UAE is nothing more than one of the multiple scenarios where there is “a complex, gray situation, where the regularity of the Emirati process to which many Colombians have joined coexist. since 2010-11 with these other less transparent and clandestine operations,” says Urueña.
Elizabeth Dickinson, a security and conflict analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank with experience in Colombia and the Arabian Peninsula, recalls that there were already retired Colombian military personnel recruited in the UAE who “They were involved in operations in the Yemen conflict years ago.”
“I have spoken in the past to retired soldiers who believed they would only be in the UAE, train in the UAE, live in the UAE and never be sent into battle, and who ended up in very different situations than what they believed were the terms of the contract.” Dickinson tells BBC Mundo.
“It makes you believe that there are suspicious hirings taking place”adds the expert, despite the fact that the UAE insists on having nothing to do with the facts and testimonies that this report exposes.
At the beginning of the 2010s, many retired or active military personnel who requested discharge from the Colombian army joined the Emirati armed ranks.
“This was part of a UAE project to form army units and battalions that included Latin Americans: Colombians, Panamanians, Chileans and Salvadorans“says Rodríguez, clarifying that this operated under legality and formality and that it has nothing to do with the current situation in Sudan.
“Others, also on a regular basis, went to carry out surveillance work in private security companies,” he adds.
The salary of a Colombian soldier varies between 500 and 700 dollars. A retired person earns even less guarding a building. In the UAE they can earn four or five times more than in Colombia.
“It is a seductive option that at the time caused, during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, his Minister of Defense to have to travel to the UAE asking to regulate the phenomenon so as not to harm Colombia,” recalls Urueña.
“Security cooperation was the basis of a bilateral relationship between Colombia and the UAE that has also continued to grow in trade and investment,” says the expert.
A vast and dark market
Non-transparent companies, deceived soldiers, broken families.
The latest events in Sudan remind Colombia of the vast and dark market to which its retired military personnel are exposed, highly valued for their long experience fighting powerful armed groups and drug cartels and their handling of US and NATO weapons. high technology.
“It is a multi-faceted market, with situations as dark as Mexican drug cartels now recruiting veterans to fight their turf wars or that other former Colombian soldiers end up involved in the assassination of the president of Haiti Jovenel Moïse in 2021,” says Urueña.
“Mercenarism must be prohibited in Colombia. The military should have a better standard of living in Colombia but the owners of young blood spilled for money in foreign towns should be criminally punished,” Petro said in X on November 27.
For several security experts in Colombia, it is a reality that will be difficult to resolve without reforming public policies for veteran care that right now do not seem to satisfy the hundreds who risk their lives in foreign conflicts.
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